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Owen Peter Phillips, B.A PROPORTION AND APPORTIONMENT: A Study in Homeric Values PROPORTION AND APPORTIONMENT: A Study in Homeric Values By Owen Peter Phillips, B.A. Thesis Submitted to the School of Graduate Studies in Partial Fufillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts McMaster University © Owen Peter Phillips, September 2015 M.A. Thesis by Owen Phillips, for the Dept. of Classics at McMaster University McMaster University MASTER OF ARTS (2015) Hamilton, Ontario (Classics) TITLE: Proportion and Apportionment: A Study in Homeric Values AUTHOR: Owen Peter Phillips, B.A. (McMaster University) SUPERVISOR: Prof. Sean Corner NUMBER OF PAGES: vii, 114. ii M.A. Thesis by Owen Phillips, for the Dept. of Classics at McMaster University For my parents iii M.A. Thesis by Owen Phillips, for the Dept. of Classics at McMaster University Abstract The aim of this thesis is to elucidate Homeric aesthetical, ethical, and political values; the relation between these values and those of the polis; and what this relation tells us about the place of Homeric society in our account of the development of the polis. I argue that the system of value that we find in the Iliad and the Odyssey is predicated on the ideas of portion, proportion, and proper distribution. These ideas, I contend, animate the Homeric conception of justice and of appropriateness. Further, I argue that this system shares much ground with the middling ideology of the polis, but is different from this ideology in respect of the discourse of sōphrosunē and of being mesos/metrios. From this, I maintain that the Homeric worldview reflects the social and material conditions of a world that shares the basic values of the polis but is not as sociologically complex as the polis. iv M.A. Thesis by Owen Phillips, for the Dept. of Classics at McMaster University Acknowledgements I must first thank my supervisor, Prof. Sean Corner. Through countless conversations, he has taught me much, most of all how to think. I began this thesis thinking about a box of rotten arrows; without his mentorship, I could not have reached where I have ended. For this, and for his enriching of my life, I am deeply grateful. I also thank Prof. Claude Eilers and Prof. Kathryn Mattison for their perceptive comments at my thesis defence and, further, for teaching and advising me over the course of my six years at McMaster. More broadly, I thank all the professors in the Department of Classics, who have in innumerable ways fostered my intellectual development. Lastly, I thank Emily Lamond, whose love and love for life I cannot live without. v M.A. Thesis by Owen Phillips, for the Dept. of Classics at McMaster University Declaration of Academic Achievement The author declares that the content of this thesis has been completed by Owen Peter Phillips, with recognition of the contributions of his supervisory committee consisting of Prof. Sean Corner, Prof. Claude Eilers, and Prof. Kathryn Mattison during the research and writing process. vi M.A. Thesis by Owen Phillips, for the Dept. of Classics at McMaster University Table of Contents Introduction ...................................................................................................................................... 1 Chapter One: Homeric justice .......................................................................................................... 4 I: Introduction .............................................................................................................................. 4 II: Distributive justice .................................................................................................................. 4 III: Distributive justice and Thersites ......................................................................................... 17 IV: Distributive justice and the funeral games for Patroclus ..................................................... 24 V: Conclusion ............................................................................................................................ 30 Chapter Two: Homeric ethical thought .......................................................................................... 31 I: Introduction ............................................................................................................................ 31 II: Kosmos, moira, and aisa ....................................................................................................... 32 III: Themis and dikē ................................................................................................................... 50 IV: Hybris .................................................................................................................................. 61 V: Figures of impropriety, injustice, and excess ........................................................................ 65 VI: Conclusion ........................................................................................................................... 79 Chapter Three: Homeric political culture ...................................................................................... 82 I: Introduction ............................................................................................................................ 82 II: The middling ideology and Homeric ethical thought ............................................................ 83 III: The fear of stasis .................................................................................................................. 86 IV: Meson and dēmion ............................................................................................................... 99 V: Conclusion .......................................................................................................................... 106 Bibliography ................................................................................................................................ 110 vii Introduction The historical interpretation of the Iliad and the Odyssey remains a point of scholarly contention. Specifically, there is little agreement on how we should understand Homeric ethical and political values, both in and of themselves and especially in relation to those of the polis. This is patent when one briefly surveys recent historical scholarship on the Homeric epics. Donlan argues that the Iliad and the Odyssey stand at the beginning of an aristocratic ideological tradition, which, in contrast to the dominant system of value in the polis, prizes personal over communal glory and which defines status in terms of qualities that are the preserve of an elite, primarily martial prowess.1 Yet he also observes that in Homer there are no birth or class terms, that ancestry is not a criterion of status, and that Homeric society is not stratified.2 In a similar vein, van Wees contends that the seemingly egalitarian nature of Homeric society in respect of status actually reflects the mystifications of an aristocratic ideology that conceals behind a discourse of merit a social system in which wealth and good birth are the real determinants of excellence.3 In regard to competition for status, van Wees concludes that the world of Homer is similar to that of Archaic and Classical Greece, but he also concedes that the Homeric value system may belong to an earlier stage in the development of Greek society.4 Morris makes a comparable argument, claiming that the Homeric poems are polemical texts that legitimize an aristocratic social structure by passing over the claims of ordinary people 1 Donlan (1999) passim, esp. pp.23-24, 40. 2 ibid. pp. 2, 16, 19. 3 van Wees (1993) pp. 70-72, 83, 99. 4 ibid. pp.160-162. M.A. Thesis by Owen Phillips, for the Dept. of Classics at McMaster University and, further, that the middling ideology – the system of thought that is characteristic of the polis – is absent in the Iliad and the Odyssey; indeed, he argues that these poems are a part of an elitist discourse that is antithetical to the middling ideology.5 However, he also contends that the essential institutions of the polis are present in the world of Homer, thereby leaving unresolved the question of how precisely the Homeric poems relate to the world of the polis.6 Clearly, there is little consensus as to how we are to fit Homeric society into our picture of the origins and development of the polis. The particular aim of this thesis is to shed some light on Homeric aesthetical, ethical, and political values, with a view to revealing the extent to which these values share ground with those that obtained in later Greek history. I argue that the Homeric value system turns on the ideas of portion, proportion, and proper distribution and, further, that these ideas animate all judgements of appropriateness and justness. In my first chapter, I analyse the Homeric conception of justice. I explicate the prescriptions regarding fair treatment that this conception of justice entails and the degree to which these prescriptions inform the judgements and behaviour of the characters. In my second chapter, I examine how the conception of justice outlined in the previous chapter fits into Homeric ethical thought more broadly. I draw attention in this chapter to concepts in Homeric ethical thought that imply an ethic of moderation and self-control. In my final chapter, I provide an account of Homeric political culture in relation to that of the polis by examining what Homeric ethical and political values, analysed in the previous chapters, have in common with the values constitutive
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